Postal Service protests Aliso Viejo's housing plan for vacant site

Oct. 21, 2013

Updated 6:44 a.m.

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Aliso Viejo Mayor Carmen Cave stands in 2007 at 4 Liberty, where the U.S. Postal Service was proposing a mail-processing facility. The city objected, and the Postal Service put the land up for sale. The city is now eyeing part of it for potential affordable housing. CINDY YAMANAKA, REGISTER FILE PHOTO

Aliso Viejo Mayor Carmen Cave stands in 2007 at 4 Liberty, where the U.S. Postal Service was proposing a mail-processing facility. The city objected, and the Postal Service put the land up for sale. The city is now eyeing part of it for potential affordable housing. CINDY YAMANAKA, REGISTER FILE PHOTO

City spars with Postal Service again

This isn't the first time Aliso Viejo has tussled with the U.S. Postal Service. In 2007, the two fought over Postal Service plans for a mail-processing facility at 4 Liberty. That squabble ended in the announcement in May 2011 that USPS would sell the land.

Since then, the land has remained vacant, though city Director of Planning Services Albert Armijo said he has talked regularly to people interested in buying it.

A stern letter from the U.S. Postal Service has slowed Aliso Viejo’s adoption of already-overdue affordable-housing plans.

City staff proposed a set of resolutions and ordinances at Wednesday’s City Council meeting designed to get the city in compliance with state-required housing plans, which the city hasn’t updated since 2004. But following opposition from the Postal Service, the council’s only action was to direct staff to send a draft of its plans to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

The city proposed to rezone four acres of the mail carrier’s 25-acre vacant lot at 4 Liberty from business park to “very high-density residential,” a kind of zoning considered suitable for affordable housing in the eyes of the state. The proposal is part of a draft housing plan intended to help meet state requirements for designating possible sites for affordable units. The move also would result in a General Plan amendment and additional environmental documentation.

But the Postal Service objected to the proposed changes in a letter signed by John Erskine, an attorney with Nossaman LLP, a law firm representing USPS.

Erskine said the zoning change would “effectively prohibit all economically viable uses of the property," which is for sale. Current legal restrictions on the land prohibit residential development.

If the city takes action, the letter said, it would be an “illegitimate use of its zoning authority” and infringe on the Postal Service’s property rights, possibly “exposing the city to tens of millions of dollars in damages.”

“Just by contemplating the proposed measures, the city has already imposed financial burdens on the USPS,” according to the letter, which added that the Postal Service almost sold the land, but the contract was “terminated because of the city’s impending zone change.”

“The USPS may be forced to initiate an action to address its economic losses,” the letter said.

Erskine also said adopting environmental documentation supporting the plan would violate the California Environmental Quality Act because of technical flaws and “incomplete, erroneous and illogical analysis” of environmental effects.

“We don’t put these issues on paper lightly,” Erskine said in an address to the council Wednesday. “This communication has been vetted very carefully with Washington, D.C., counsel. The problem is you don’t have a site that’s suitable for high-density housing.”

‘BURY THE STATE IN PAPERWORK’

Mayor Carmen Cave made a motion Wednesday to send the draft to the state instead of weighing in on any changes to the city’s planning and zoning without a meeting with the Postal Service to discuss its concerns.

“It can’t hurt, bury the state in additional paperwork, since they can choose to look at it – they don’t have to look at it,” Cave said.

“I would hate for people to walk away … with the impression that our document is seriously flawed and we have don’t a leg to stand on and we’re trying to ramrod this through, when the truth is actually far from that,” Cave said.

Erskine said he was pleased with the council’s decision to postpone action and that he expects to talk with city officials this week.

The council’s next regular meeting is Nov. 6.

CLOCK IS TICKING

Aliso Viejo is one of two cities in Orange County that haven’t sent updated housing plans to the state for approval, and time is running out.

According to Aliso Viejo’s draft housing document, the city needs to plan for 313 units of affordable housing. Of those, 201 units for “very low-income” residents and 73 for “low-income” residents are “carryover” from previous planning periods when the city didn’t meet state requirements for accommodating affordable housing.

State law doesn’t mandate that the units be built – the city just has to show where a willing developer could build them. Cities do that through the zoning code, said Albert Armijo, Aliso Viejo’s director of planning services, so rezoning two pieces of land could accommodate at least 249 lower-income units, the city’s housing plan says. The draft also proposes to rezone four acres at 2C Liberty to “very high-density residential.”

If the plan is approved, up to 200 units could be built on the Postal Service property.

The proposal came after the city dropped plans to rezone a 4-acre parcel on Orion, near Aliso Viejo Christian School, after neighbors complained about its potential effects on traffic, safety and home values.

City Attorney Scott Smith warned the City Council of “dire consequences” if the city doesn’t get its housing element in on time.

Aliso Viejo already missed an Oct. 15 deadline that the Southern California Association of Governments told six counties and 191 cities was the day governments had to adopt updated plans. But there’s a 120-day grace period after the Oct. 15 deadline, state officials said.

If the plan is later than that, the city would have to revisit its affordable-housing plans every four years instead of eight, which Cave said would cost the city more time and money.

Smith also noted that the Kennedy Commission, an Irvine-based affordable-housing advocacy group, sent a letter supporting the city’s adoption of the housing element and expressing willingness to work with the city to build affordable projects. Not certifying the housing element could result in a “very different letter” from the commission, Smith said.

Failure to comply with state law led to legal challenges for Mission Viejo, which, like Aliso Viejo, was designed by Mission Viejo Co. That city was sued by housing advocates in 2006 and eventually was ordered in court to make zoning changes. It cost taxpayers more than $375,000, city documents show.

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